Maintaining a Healthy Active Directory
I love pizza. Pizza is often cited as the most popular food in the world. Who can blame the world for loving pizza? It has the perfect blend of things that appeal to most people. Zesty tomato based sauce, hot melted cheese, a crust that could melt in your mouth if eaten alone, and toppings that only add to the tasting pleasure that is known as eating pizza. I have my own favorite blend, but the basic ingredients already get me excited (and hungry as I write this.)
If you listen to health pundits, doctors, and like-minded advocates for the physical well-being of us humans, you will frequently hear them say things like: “Cutting down on fats reduces the risks of heart disease.” Pizza, like many other dishes, is contrary to what these intelligent health-conscious people would tell you is good. Still, many of you are like me and eat it, forgetting about the dangers that can lurk. The dangers come from the lack of managing when, how much, and what we eat.
Sage advice from these professionals typically. While our species continues to learn more and more about how the human body reacts to certain things we ingest, we are discovering with greater frequency that our health is highly influenced by what we put into our body. We tend to forget at times the dangers that come from ignoring the reality around us.
This behavior of ignoring what might ail us is pervasive in more than just how we consider our own body health. As technology professionals, we frequently ignore what we put into our directory (Active Directory) as well. No one would question the importance to a long life, what exercise and a good diet would do for you. The same attitude towards keeping your directory in order with “clean” purposeful objects can pay dividends long term to a healthy directory as well.
Our bodies automatically tries to get rid of things it does not need. The body does a good job of automating this task, but sometimes to help ensure health, we are delegated with the task of balancing the intake with things like exercise. When the balance is off and we put too much of something in we may store that excess in the form of fat. Eventually, increasing our odds of developing heart disease, even subjecting ourselves to a heart attack. ask mr robot wow . Exercise and reducing the chance for the collection of fat to begin with can avoid those potential problems.
The same thing happens with our directory. If we do not regularly dispose of no longer needed clutter in the form of user objects that should have been disabled or groups that should have expired, we are lining our Active Directory arteries with the fat that will eventually lead us to admit that our primary identity platform that is the gatekeeper to access, permissions, authorization, and more is in reality, a heart attack waiting to happen. Can we automate the task? Can we delegate what does not get automated? Yes, it is possible – and you can do the right healthy thing to ensure your directory does not stop in the middle of mission critical work.
Want a quick check up of your directory health? Call your Imanami representative today for a free and complete health workup. Maybe, just maybe, we can save you from potential disaster.
Now, excuse me while I go eat an extremely small but very tasty slice of pizza. I will go for a jog this evening.
Jonathan Blackwell
View ProfileSince 2012, Jonathan Blackwell, an engineer and innovator, has provided engineering leadership that has put GroupID at the forefront of group and user management for Active Directory and Azure AD environments. His experience in development, marketing, and sales allows Jonathan to fully understand the Identity market and how buyers think.